The Essential Journey of Life and Death - Volume 2: Using Dream Yoga and Phowa as the Path 2

Buddha Shakyamuni taught the Dharma in order to wake up all sentient beings and dispel the hindrances that have bothered us for such a long time. These negativities will not just go away or be cleared up by anything except teachings on love, compassion, and wisdom. Why can’t the Buddha just wash away our difficulties? We create the dense stains of our own negative emotions—therefore, only we can remove them. The Buddha has shown us skillful techniques and methods that will completely uproot the cause of our troubles, but we ourselves must apply these methods with joyful effort for them to work. The practices of Dream Yoga and Phowa are designed to release and liberate duality conceptions into wisdom awareness. When we’re not hindered by duality, we see that everything is a dream because everything is constantly changing. Almost half our lives is spent sleeping, but with Dream Yoga we can use this time to truly benefit ourselves and others by redirecting and transforming our neutral dreams into positive, virtuous states of Dharma practice. Similarly, the practice of Phowa is so profound, direct, and swift that if we apply this technique at the time of death, we can achieve buddhahood, even if we haven’t had the time or ability to meditate very much during our lifetime. Without any other meditation, this practice leads directly to realization. 86 Photos and Illustrations; Glossary; Includes entire practice text of "Longchen Nyingtik Phowa: Buddhahood Without Meditation" by arranged by Patrul Rinpoche. Introduction to Dream Yoga -- Prerequisites for Dream Yoga -- Preparations Before Sleep: The Purification of Body, Speech, and Mind -- The Main Practice, Part 1: Maintaining Awareness While Dream -- Questions and Answers on Dream Yoga --The Main Practice, Part 2: Exercises to Maintain Awareness While Dreaming -- The Main Practice, Part 3: Removing Obstacles to Dream Yoga -- The Main Practice, Part 4: Recognizing the Illusory Nature of Dreams -- The Main Practice, Part 5: Increasing Your Level of Realization -- Questions and Answers on Dream Yoga -- Final Summary of Dream Yoga Practice -- Conclusion -- Interview with Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche on Dream Yoga -- Outline of Essential Dream Yoga Practice -- Introduction and History of the Teachings on Phowa -- Phowa: Who, Where, When, How, and What -- Preliminaries for Phowa -- The Five Types of Phowa -- Practice at the Time of Death -- Commentary Specific to the Longchen Nyingtik Phowa -- Closing Remarks -- Questions and Answers on Phowa Practice -- Interview with the Khenpo Rinpoche on Caring for People at the Time of Death -- Outline of the Longchen Nyingtik Phowa Practice -- Sadhana of the Longchen Nyingtik Phowa